Savage Journey

by Neil Hunter

  The trooper had to speak to him twice before he responded. ‘I’m Kennick.’

  ‘Feller name of Beecher? He said to tell you he wants to see you. In back of the civilian stable.’

  The trooper hurried off. Kennick nodded absently to himself and headed across the parade ground.

  As he reached the stable, he heard someone calling his name. He didn’t turn, but walked on into the dimness of the stable. He passed through and stepped into the sunlit yard in the back. He saw Beecher the moment he moved out of the shadow into the sunlight. The breed was leaning on the corral fence, his back to Kennick, watching the horses in the corral.

  ‘You want me,’ Kennick said.

  Beecher turned away from the corral, his arms at his sides. He’d got a gun from somewhere, and now his right hand moved and poised, claw-like, above the jutting butt.

  ‘Kennick,’ he said conversationally.

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘You and me, Kennick. Here and now.’

  ‘For what, Beecher? Because you got beat in a bar brawl? You figure that’s worth a killing?’

  Beecher moved away from the corral, moved slow, limping slightly.

  ‘You figure I’m as crazy as Griff. I don’t know. I ain’t smart. Just a feller who ain’t had it easy. Fact. A half-breed don’t find it easy to go on in this world. Folks just somehow don’t take to him. Only way he can get respect from folks is to knock it into ‘em. Lot of men have quit lookin’ sideways at me after I showed ’em who they was spittin’ on. Maybe it’s a thing with me, but I can’t take being beat is all. When a man ain’t got nothin’ but his pride he don’t take kindly to havin’ it stomped on.’

  Kennick shook his head in angry confusion. ‘And you figure killing me is going to put things right?’

  ‘I reckon it’ll satisfy me.’

  ‘Don’t count on it satisfying me? Bren O’Hara said, stepping out of the stable to stand near Kennick. Jeannie was just behind O’Hara.

  ‘Stay out, O’Hara.’ Beecher said tensely, his eyes narrowing. ‘You’re too damn fond of buttin’ in.’

  ‘Luke, don’t let him crowd you,’ O’Hara said.

  ‘Christ, are you his goddamn wet nurse, you Irish bastard?’

  O’Hara’s face reddened angrily.

  ‘Beecher, I’m not going to walk away,’ Kennick said. ‘But I’m not pushing it. It’s your play.’

  ‘Please come away, Luke,’ Jeannie begged.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said, wanting to leave, knowing he might be losing her, but also knowing there was no walking away. He heard her sob of despair and, forgetting, turned his head to look at her. Instantly, he realized that was a bad mistake. He jerked his head around, saw that Beecher’s gun was already clear of its holster.

  Kennick grabbed for his Colt, fear clawing at his gut. He saw Beecher’s gun rise and point. The breed fired.

  The slug caught Kennick in his left side, spun him around. He fell, the Colt flying from his hand. He landed and rolled, the pain growing like a smothering cloud. There was a fire in his chest and a roaring in his head that grew louder and louder until it exploded in a single flash of shimmering redness.

  By the corral Beecher was ready to put another slug into Kennick when a gun exploded. Something took the breed in the chest, knocked him back against the corral fence. He got caught in the rails and hung there, as an awesome numbness began to spread through his body. He coughed as blood filled his mouth, dribbled from his lips. Looking down, Beecher saw the left side of his shirt was bright red and wet.

  A heavy feeling of tiredness came over him. He sighed, the sound strangely loud in his ears. He raised his head. O’Hara was standing just offside, holding an Army Colt in his big fist. Beecher’s sight began to dim. Beyond O’Hara he could just make out Kennick lying on the ground, his left side bloody. The woman was on her knees beside him. Then Beecher’s head dropped on to his chest, suddenly too heavy to hold up.

  Somewhere in the fort a bugle sounded. The lonely sound drifting up into the vast sky, out over the lost and empty land, fading on a whispering note of despair was the last thing Beecher knew.

  Lying motionless on an Army cot in Fort Cameron’s infirmary, Kennick was left with long hours to fill when Jeannie was not there with him. His side was still sore where the doctor had dug out Beecher’s slug. He had been lucky. He’d lost a lot of blood, and he would have a permanent scar, but he was alive. And that meant a lot to him.

  He knew that, now that it was all over, ended for good and all. But the price had been high. He had come through alive, but four men had died. And he found no satisfaction in that. Four men dead. That was a damned high price to pay for anything.

  Things that had to be though, he saw, could not be changed. No matter how hard a man tried. Kennick had had time to think it out now.

  Griff McBride had been heading for his destiny ever since he’d given in to his hate for Kennick. It could have ended no other way. Joe Beecher, too. Born a half-breed with, as he saw it, no legacy but pride—which shaped his destiny.

  Kennick thought of Kicking Bear too. He had set them all on the bloody trail that day when he attacked Kennick’s patrol. Now the Comanche warlord was dead, and Kennick wondered if that evened the score. Kicking Bear had killed Kennick’s men, and Kennick had killed Kicking Bear. It seemed a pointless code for living—eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. But Kicking Bear, too, had had his destiny to meet.

  Surprisingly, Kennick found that he no longer wanted to carry the burden of guilt he had borne for so long. Perhaps he no longer needed to. Anyway, it seemed as if he had worked it out of his system. He would never forget completely, he knew. But he could face up to it now. He could face up to life and all it brought him: good and bad.

  A man was born, lived, made his way as best he knew how, trying to do something worthwhile before he died. There was no time to waste on shadows of things he wished had never happened.

  The two riders reined in their mounts on the rise of a grassy hill. Below them, sheltered by the surrounding hills, lay the place Luke Kennick called home. The house and outbuildings stood out neat and clean against the green of the Wyoming grass.

  ‘Luke! It’s beautiful!’

  Kennick looked at Jeannie, finding comfort in her childlike pleasure. It had been a hard, long ride from Fort Cameron, and physically he hadn’t really been up to it yet. But it was time to get away from the fort and its reminders of death and violence.

  Luke Kennick gazed hard at the woman beside him. Maybe with her help he could finally erase those violent days and that savage journey. It would take time, he knew, but they had that ahead of them. All the time in the world.

  Surely, he thought, as they rode down toward their home, a man and a woman, plus a lifetime, could forget a dark past and build a bright future.

  Give or take a few rough spots, they were going to give it a damned good try.

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